Autumn Flowers: poem

Those few pale Autumn flowers,
How beautiful they are!
Than all that went before,
Than all the Summer store,
How lovelier far!

And why? - They are the last!
The last! the last! the last!
Oh! by that little word
How many thoughts are stirred
That whisper of the past!

Pale flowers! pale perishing flowers!
Ye 're types of precious things;
Types of those bitter moments,
That like, like life's enjoyments,
On rapid, rapid wings:

Last hours with parting dear ones,
(That Time the fastest spends)
Last tears in silence shed,
Last words half uttered,
Last looks of dying friends.

Who but would fain compress
A life into a day, -
The last day spent with one
Who, ere the morrow's sun,
Must leave us, and for aye?

O precious, precious moments!
Pale flowers! ya 're types of those;
The saddest, sweetest, dearest,
Because, like those, the nearest
To an eternal close.

pale flowers! pale perishing flowers!
I woo your gentle breath -
I leave the Summer rose
For younger, blither blows;
Tell me of change and death.

(Caroline Bowles Southey)